Joel Friedlander is a self-published author, an award-winning book designer, and an accomplished blogger. He's the founder of the Self-Publishing Roadmap online training course, and a frequent speaker at industry events where he talks to writers about how the new tools of publishing can help them reach and inspire their readers.

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While I truly appreciate all of your great help, and now you explaining to us how to get an ISBN, what I would really like to know:

Why is Bowker allowed to have this monopoly on ISBNs?

I am new to all of this, so I just found out what is really going on, and it sickens me. I don’t understand how this is even legal. Why is Bowker the only one allowed to sell ISBNs in the USA? Where’s the competition? Their price was already obscene, but now they raised it! Talk about price gouging. They are sticking it to us authors. It’s abhorrent!

Mgon, the international treaty that established the ISBN assigned one entity in each country to administer ISBNs for that country. In many countries, this is a national library or other government agency. In the U.S., it’s Bowker. No competition is possible under the terms of the treaty. However, Bowker has authorized a few people to issue ISBNs, and if you print with some of the larger print on demand vendors, they will often give you an ISBN for nothing, although it won’t show you as the publisher.

Joel, thanks for your quick reply and easy explanation. I had no idea it came about from an international treaty. You would think that all my searching would have turned that up. LOL. Again, thank you… for all of your awesome help in so many things. I read your articles and share them all the time. You rock! :-D

What about the SAN number–Standard Address Number—it seems really pricey at Bowkers–do you consider it important. Also when you say we can buy a barcode from barcodegraphics.com. Do they just give you some kind of sticker that you give to your book designer to slap it on the book?

Hi Joel, I feel like you’ve answered this question before, but I seached your site and can’t find it.
What’s the downside of not buying my own ISBN and using the free ones, provided by CreateSpace or Bookbaby?? thanks

There are 2 potential issues with using a “free” ISBN. First, it will show the owner of the ISBNs (CreateSpace, Smashwords, etc.) as the publisher of record. Second, if you ever want to move your book to another vendor, you will need to use a different ISBN and deal with the metadata issues that that implies.

You are not authorized by Bowker to re-sell the ISBNs you bought from them and, anyway, it’s a really bad idea since whoever buys them from you may not realize that you will be shown as the publisher of their book. Hold onto the ISBNs, they never expire or wear out.

thanks for the Bowker tour. a few questions. The registration asks for Publisher. It never occured to me that I might need a publisher name if I self-publish – do I?
and why the package of 10 ISBN numbers? Is that 10 differenct numbers as in enough for 10 books? thanks carol

When you self-publish you can either use your own name or set up a publishing company. If you use your own name, you have your book, written by Carol Brill, published by Carol Brill. Some authors don’t want to present themselves that way so, if you form a publishing company (basically you, “doing business as”) it will be written by Carol Brill, published by Brill Books or CB Books, or Three Trees Books or whatever you call it. It’s a different way of presenting what you’re doing and doesn’t take much to set up.

You’ll need one ISBN for each different edition of your book, so people and retailers can tell them apart. So if you do a paperback and a hardcover, that’s 2 ISBNs. If you do a paperback and an ePub version for sale on the Nook and in the iBookstore, you’ll need 2 ISBNs. So it just depends on your plans. 1 ISBN costs $125, making it a spectacularly bad deal. 10 cost $250, or $25 each, still high but more palatable.